Junk Food

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Welcome to Good Dirt Radio, where daily lifestyle choices connect… to a healthier world.

What do Big Agriculture, Big Medicine and Big Pharmaceuticals all have in common? They prosper… from consumers who eat Junk Food. While industrial agriculture, the ballooning western medicine system and global pharmaceuticals offer many benefits to an expanding population, there is an unhealthy link between the three. Big Ag brings us junk, in the form of genetically modified and processed foods, along with feedlot meats, dead soil, massive waste and pollution. Big Med treats our junk food related diseases with toxic drugs – too often scripted by Big Pharma’s sales regimes, at a high cost to consumers.

And its killing us. According to the book Rich Food, Poor Food, ingredients found in up to 80 percent of pre-packaged US supermarket foods have been banned in other countries. Eating less processed, preserved and junk food can move dollar votes away from the Big Three, toward, local economies, less pollution and healthier citizens.

Edwards: Over the millions of years that life has evolved on this planet, we have selected to survive based on the nutrients that are available to us in our environment. Junk Food goes against that natural selection and has contributed to the increase in poor health around the globe. Every structure of our body, every cellular function is dependent on the nutrients that we have in our food. Junk food is depleted of those nutrients. We don’t get the vitamins, the minerals the fiber that we need. We get multiple exposures to herbicides pesticides and then chemical additives such as coloring and sugars which can of course cause weight gain, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, allergies, hyperactivity, cancer.

That’s Dr. Louise Edwards, an inspired naturopathic physician, acupuncturist and health educator from Durango, CO. With 30 yrs. of community experience, she sees Junk Food as a root cause of the decline in personal and global health.

Edwards: Genetically modified foods, which are often a component of junk food, have many problems not least of which is that it increases the number of white blood cells, the first line of immune defense. And that will affect our gastrointestinal tract, lungs, our blood vessels, causing poor digestion, rashes, obesity and diabetes. It can also affect the nervous system and is correlated with anxiety, depression and hyperactivity.

Most processed and junk foods are also packaged in plastic, which can leach poisons like biphenyl A and phthalates into our food.

Scott Ohlgren, a health practitioner and entrepreneur from Boulder, CO became aware of the diet-disease connection as a teenager, when canned bread and tang were still popular. He cured himself of serious health symptoms with cleansing food.

Ohlgren: There’s a direct correlation between what we put into our mouths and the diseases we end up getting. Real food can eliminate a disease state. The body is dying, dying to repair itself. Until people have that experience, they don’t realize that by eating the diet that is represented a lot in the media, in advertising, in fast food nation, problems that were happening in their bodies, were self created. The large majority of every skin condition, lung problem, liver malfunction, reproductive issue, heart condition, is the result of our own metabolic, toxic overload. And all of that stems directly from this historically new food chain, that we and our children are currently consuming.

Edwards: Eliminating junk food from your diet will improve your sense of well-being, reduce the cost of healthcare, allow you to age well. It will also improve the health of the planet by reducing petrochemicals that are contributing to climate change.

For more on the benefits of fresh, local food and healthy snacks, and other eco-living ideas, please visit us at gooddirtradio.org.

For consumers who want a healthier world, quitting junk food is a powerful way to create a ripple effect of change… with one positive action.

I’m Tami Graham and I’m Tom Bartels. Thanks for joining us on Good Dirt Radio, digging up good news…. for a change.

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